USS Savannah (CL-42) was a light cruiser of the that served in World War II in the Atlantic and Mediterranean theatres of operation. Savannah conducted Neutrality Patrols (1941) and wartime patrols in the Atlantic and Caribbean (1942), and supported the invasion of French North Africa in Operation Torch (November 1942). She sought German-supporting blockade runners off the east coast of South America (1943), and supported the Allied landings on Sicily and at Salerno (1943). Off Salerno on 11 September 1943, a German radio-controlled Fritz X glide-bomb caused extensive casualties aboard and serious damage to Savannah, requiring emergency repairs in Malta and permanent repairs at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. After repairs and upgrades, she served in the task force that carried President Roosevelt to the Yalta Conference in early 1945.
Construction and launch
Savannah was laid down on 31 May 1934 by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation in Camden, New Jersey; launched on 8 May 1937; sponsored by Miss Jayne Maye Bowden, the niece of Senator Richard B. Russell, Jr., of Georgia; and commissioned in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard on 10 March 1938, with Captain Robert C. Giffen in command.
Inter-war period
Following a shakedown cruise to Cuba and Haiti in the spring, Savannah returned to Philadelphia on 3 June for alterations followed by final trials off Rockland, Maine. This cruiser, prepared to protect American nationals should war break out in Europe, steamed out from Philadelphia bound for England on 26 September, and she reached Portsmouth on 4 October. However, the Munich agreement had postponed the war, so Savannah returned to Norfolk on 18 October. Following winter maneuvers in the Caribbean Sea, Savannah visited her namesake city, Savannah, Georgia, from 12 to 20 April 1939. She got underway from Norfolk on 26 May; transited the Panama Canal on 1 June; and arrived at San Diego on the 17th. Her homeport was soon shifted to Long Beach, California.
Savannah arrived at Pearl Harbor on 21 May 1940, and then she conducted battle readiness and training operations in Hawaiian waters until 8 November. On 8 August Andrew C. Bennett was given command of the ship. Savannah returned to Long Beach on 14 November, and soon thereafter, she was overhauled at the Mare Island Navy Yard in San Francisco Bay. Savannah steamed back into Pearl Harbor on 27 January 1941 and remained there on the U.S. Navy's Hawaiian Sea Frontier until 19 May, when she set course back to the Panama Canal and cruised to Boston via Cuba, arriving on 17 June 1941.
The Neutrality Patrol
As the flagship of Cruiser Division 8 (CruDiv 8), Savannah conducted Neutrality Patrols in waters ranging south to Cuba and back up the seaboard to the Virginia Capes. On 25 August 1941, she got underway from Norfolk to patrol in the South Atlantic as far as Trindade and Martim Vaz in the screen of the aircraft carrier . The task group then swept north from Bermuda to NS Argentia, Newfoundland, where Savannah arrived on 23 September. During the next eight weeks, the cruiser helped cover British merchantmen and Allied convoys to within a few hundred miles of the British Isles, replenishing at Casco Bay, Maine, or at New York City.
World War II
North Atlantic operations
Savannah was in New York Harbor when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. She steamed that same day toward Casco Bay, Maine, and from there she steamed via Bermuda to Brazil, arriving at Recife on 12 January 1942. She joined the screen of the aircraft carrier , in patrolling the Atlantic Ocean north of Bermuda. This island became the cruiser's temporary base while she watched over Vichy French warships based at Martinique and Guadeloupe in the French West Indies. Savannah departed from Shelly Bay, Bermuda, on 7 June, and entered the Boston Navy Yard two days later for an overhaul. This was completed by 15 August. Savannah received a new commander, Leon S. Fiske, on 12 June. Savannah next steamed to readiness exercises in Chesapeake Bay that would prepare her for the invasion of North Africa.